


Loud Like Love

by Whreflections



Category: Across the Universe (2007)
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Drunk Sex, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Heavy Angst, High Sex, M/M, Other ships are referenced, PTSD Max, Poly V Relationship, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and the Max/Jude/Prudence is past tense, in which Max and Lucy share Jude
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-20 13:32:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4789097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Against all odds, Max Carrigan is home from Vietnam.  He's still alive, still a big brother and a son and a friend.  Still in love with the man who loves his sister, who might even have it in him to love them both.  </p><p>All that's well and good, but it'd be better if he wasn't fucking falling apart.  He'd always seen his options as pretty straight forward- 1. Go to Nam and die, or 2. Go to Nam and come home</p><p>Now that he's back, he has to realize that he falls squarely into the black hole of Option 3- Go, and someone else will come home in your place</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AwesomeTeaPanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomeTeaPanda/gifts).



> So...it's hard to know how to introduce this. 
> 
> After I realized this movie was going to fandom level for me, I knew of two things I really wanted to write- A poly V relationship where Lucy and Max share Jude and it is not weird; it works for all three of them. And, fic dealing seriously and extensively with Max's PTSD. 
> 
> Both of those were things I couldn't really find, so I ended up combining them into this. It'll hurt, but I'll say in advance that I mean for it to end on a hopeful note. We'll see how it goes as we get there.

His release from the hospital should feel like freedom.  He thinks it will, right up until the moment he’s standing at the window he and Jude hung out of a lifetime ago and he realizes his voice still won’t work.  Shit, he still can’t look at Lucy even though he can practically feel her vibrating behind him with the need for his approval, for some sign she was right to bring him here, for any damn thing at all. 

Her hand on his back is feather light and he hates it, hates that she touches him now like he’s a wild thing that might snap or shy away, hates more that she’s right to.  Before, she would have thrown her arms around his neck, nuzzled into the collar of his jacket and smiled when he wrapped her up tight.  He misses the feel of her under his arm, the music of her laughter, but he can’t turn around.  It’s all he can do to get a grip on the windowsill. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to come here or if—“  Her voice wavers, fingertips stroking careful against his shoulder.  “I could find something else, but Sadie said it’s been sitting empty and we could stay forever if we want but if it’d be easier to get a fresh start we can—“

He shakes his head once and her babbling stops, caught on a sharp intake of breath.  It’s enough to make him wonder at just how little he’s responded to her, how little she’s had to go on.  He could swear they spoke the first time she came to the hospital or maybe the second, but it’s all fuzzy, worse when he tries to focus.  For all he fucking knows he’s utterly failed to communicate with her at all since his plane touched down.  The goddamn letters made more sense than he does in person. 

It’s almost funny; he almost smiles. 

Max swallows three or four times, presses his forehead to the window pane.  The glass feels wonderfully cold.  By the creak of the floorboards, Lucy’s back almost to the door before he manages to halfway unglue his throat. 

“Thanks, Luce.”  His voice is hoarse with disuse; his mouth tastes like rust. 

The way her breath catches is another one of those things that has theoretical potential to be satisfying, like the supposed magic of walking out of hospital doors.  If she was shocked and happy it _would_ be, but even her breath sounds damp. 

“Anything.  Anything you need, you just…anything.”  The wall sighs as it takes her weight.  “We’ll get through this Max, okay?  I’ll be here.  I promise.  We’ll figure it out together.” 

She means well; God does she ever.  No one means better than Lucy, in the best sense.  Every letter he got he could damn near see her, eyes on fire, screaming for him to deaf ears.  She’s irrepressible, a stunning force of nature, but he’s afraid she might have finally met her baffling match.  There are no speeches she can give to the voices in his head, no march that takes her far enough to reach the roads he’s on.  It’s cold in this room but in the back of his mind the jungle burns and burns and there is only so long the shifting sand of his thoughts can keep it at bay.  She’d pull it all out of him with her bare hands if she could, but it’s too close, too tight, embedded too deep.  Whatever thread he tries to pull, the rest of him comes with it.  This hell she wants so desperately to wade in and free him from isn’t just all around him, it’s stitched into his skin.  He’s too heavy to carry, too enmeshed to extricate, too weary to walk. 

But she believes, and he’ll cut out his tongue before he tells her she shouldn’t. 

<><><><><> 

The days are all too long. 

Lucy spends what time she can with him but she has to work; even if she didn’t insist on paying something to Sadie though Sadie swears she doesn’t need it now, there’s food and water and heat and it all falls to her because as of right now he’s still fucking worthless.  He hates her job because she hates it, hates that he’s a burden, but all his rage now is melted down.  He used to be able to call fire to his tongue, to the tips of his fingers; now it’s all twisted too deep to reach, eating him up from the inside. 

It’s hard when she’s there, worse when she’s gone.  The quiet claws at him and the apartment’s too empty and his head’s too goddamn crowded to give him room to breathe.  He’s too exhausted to sleep; the fear of what might find him when he does keeps him up and pacing all through the night.  His arms itch for morphine.  He gives himself the task of trying to pass out only in the afternoons or midmornings, whenever Lucy’s gone and he’s alone.  It works, mostly, but he’s never been one to keep to a schedule well at the best of times.  He knows he’s fucked this one up when he wakes screaming to find that his hands are already locked around her wrists, her fingertips hovering steady against his cheeks. 

“You’re home, Max.  It’s just me.  It’s just me” 

He wants to tell her that there’s no ‘just’ about it, to fucking sing about her bravery.  The hold he’s got on her is bruising, has to be, but even when he lets go in disgust she doesn’t flinch.  Her hands aren’t shaking and she’s not leaving, not even though he hurt her, not even though she should.  Her eyes are wet, shining, but even the look there isn’t fear.  At least, it’s not the kind he’d expect.  He’s seen enough fear now to be a goddamn connoisseur. 

He swallows against the bile in his throat, shifts back to curl against the wall.  Her hands follow him, stroking through his hair, smoothing at the shirt that’s sticking to his back.  It’s freezing, it’s fucking freezing and he’s covered in sweat and Lucy’s petting at him like it’s normal, like he’s still the brother she knows and not the batshit crazy thing they sent back in his skin. 

“ _Fuck_.”  He’s breathing heavy, teeth damn near chattering.  He’d meant to apologize or tell her to get the hell out, something, _anything_ , but it seems that one word is all he’s got. 

She hums, or maybe there’s words.  All he knows for certain is a warm tone that’s wholly Lucy, the press of her lips to his temple, his name murmured against his hair somewhere inbetween.  Her tenderness hurts but he folds in toward it, scrabbling and desperate, buries his face against her thigh and shakes until he dimly realizes that he’s crying. 

<><><><><> 

Living in a home where love was life and life was shared, they’d never needed doors.  He remembers lying here with Jude, head reeling from weed and whiskey, heat stirring in his belly as they listened to the sounds of Sadie and Jojo making love drifting through the curtain.  It was beautiful, would have been even if he hadn’t been running quite so hot and eager.  As it was, behind the chemicals that soothed his blood he could feel reaching fingers, as precise in their scratch against his bones as the tick of a clock.  In less than two weeks, he’d be shipping out.  In a little over two months, he’d probably be dead. 

Jude had Lucy by then and of all the times they’d slept next to each other here in the early days, they’d only ever truly shared this bed in the most Biblical sense with someone else between them.  There was no precedent for what he wanted, but he’d rationalized to himself that the desires of a dying man are sacred.  He could move, and Jude could answer, and even if it was a ‘no’ Jude’d put it down to altered states and desperation.  If yes, he took something with him to the jungle worth carrying inside his fucking ribs, right there where it could rattle against his heart with the rhythm of every breath. 

He downed the rest of the beer he’d been holding, closed his eyes and felt his neck arch, tugged up by the music of Sadie’s cries.  The press of Jude’s body against his was a burning line, so hot he was almost panting before he even rolled over.  He moved quick, or meant to, but he’d reached a point so far down his sluggish limbs only answered him if they were inclined to agree.  The hand that he’d wanted to press against Jude’s heart had other ideas, too distracted by the hem of his shirt and the strip of skin already bared at his waist. 

The sound that left Jude’s throat then seemed too breathy, too needy to be real.  If he hadn’t been so focused on rolling the rest of the way over to bury his face into Jude’s neck, he might have been more surprised.  Jude’s skin when he lapped at it tasted like sweat and charcoal, like sweet ash.  It hit him like a shock up his spine, like the thrum of life.  He bit down, pulled back when he realized he’d said fuck all of what he’d meant to. 

“Hey, Jude?” 

Jude’s hand found the back of his head, big and heavy, holding him in rather than pushing him away.  Max’s follow up question came not from his lips, though he tried, but from his nuzzle against the line of Jude’s jaw, the stutter of his breath, the clench of his hand against a belt loop on Jude’s jeans.  The roll of his hips was punctuation. 

Jude answered with a hand cupped against his cheek, a kiss so deep it grounded him, kept his mind from flying back to nights with Prudence.  They’d kissed a dozen times or more, but Jude had never kissed him like this.  Before was all light, showy and experimental and full of the taste of girls—this was whiskey rich and full of intent, nothing but Jude. 

Max’s eyes opened to a look that made him ache, the stroke of Jude’s thumb against the arch of his cheek.  Tracing, searching.  Like he was measuring Max’s dimensions.  “Yeah, you better remember.  If you draw me when I’m gone, I’ll haunt your ass if it’s shit.”

“Don’t say that.”  The kicked puppy reproach in his eyes was almost enough to make Max apologize, but Jude was still touching him, still memorizing him.  He kept still instead, soaking in the sense memory of his touch, the way his calluses felt as they grazed Max’s lips.  “I’ll mail it to you.” 

“God, don’t; I don’t need my face.  Anyone else’s.  Hell, send me yours.”  He shifted, gave up his grip on Jude’s belt to rake his fingers through dark, thick hair.  At the back of his neck, he caught a firm hold and pulled Jude back for a kiss, slow and wet.  “Too goddamn pretty, you’re—Jesus, I’m too drunk for this; just kiss me.” 

Another, and another.  Jude was all around him, the width of his hands and the comfort of his weight and the press of his cock when he faced Max properly and let him feel it.  He wondered, briefly, if Jude could have kissed him like that at the end of his physical and kept him safe, but it was a pointless grasp with nothing to support it.  From all he’d seen, Jude probably could have fucked him over the desk and they’d have looked the other way and stamped his papers.

That night, he came with Jude on top of him, his wonderfully strong arms caging Max in, keeping him close.  Jude fell apart for him with a sound more beautiful than he remembered, more affecting than the fleeting echoes he’d caught from down the hall on the nights Jude and Lucy shared this bed.  They fell asleep together and woke up together and in the morning, he gave Jude back to his sister without saying any of the words that hung in his throat.  He was dying and they were living and whatever he wanted, everything was as it should be. 

<><><><><> 

There’s nothing half so grand to overhear now.  They had love and music and the heartbeat of the city; he’s got a disorienting swirl of traffic that somehow sounds different than it used to and the thin menace of quiet and the pain in Lucy’s voice that carries just far enough when she thinks he’s asleep. 

“Mom, it’s not that he doesn’t want to see you it’s—  _No_ , will you listen for a minute?  He’s not…physically he’s better but he’s…I don’t think he wants you to see him like this.  I don’t think he wants me to either.” 

“I just don’t know what to do.  I’m here for him, but I don’t think that’s enough.  He locks me out before he sleeps now.  Jojo, I—  No, I know.  I know.  I’m trying.  Yeah.  The morphine scares me, too.  Next time you come home maybe you could— Thanks.” 

“I just thought you might have heard from him.  I know I’m probably the last person he wants to write but I thought maybe if he knew Max was home— No, it’s not about that.  Look I don’t…I don’t care if he comes back for me. I mean I do care, but I don’t want him back for me.  I think Max needs him, and I don’t think that needs to come from me.  So if you talk to him, would you let him know?  Please?”

“I just want him to know it’s okay if he can’t talk about it, it’s okay if he can’t deal with any of it; he never should have _had_ to deal with it and I— I’m sorry; I’m sorry.  I try to keep it together around him.  I don’t want to make it worse but I can’t help but think, they did this to him, they put my brother through hell and they’re just getting away with it?  Right now, somebody else’s brother is dying over there and it’s…it’s sick.  It’s…I don’t even know what it is.  I don’t understand this world anymore.” 

“He came home from the hospital over a month ago.  Look, dad, I can’t talk about this right now.  He’ll come home when he’s ready to; I won’t make him, and if you come here, he’ll have to want to see you before you come in here.  He’s been through enough; I don’t think he needs—  Fine.  Fine, but she agrees with me.” 

The worst part, the absolute worst part, is the way her voice cracks.  When she talks to him, it’s damn near universally solid, fault lines sealed up and bound together by force of iron will. 

<><><><><> 

Prudence moves back in, and brings sunlight with her. 

Lucy is a vigilant shield and he’s fucking grateful for that, but there’s a touch of darkness in her too.  It’s different from his but he can see it, feel it in the air around her.  He doesn’t like to think too long on its points of origin—too many of them trace back to him.  But Prudence…God love her, for all she’s been through, nothing can get its hooks deep enough in her to stick.  It slides around her instead, forever grasping while she twists through the middle, reaching her hands out to feel the touch of clearer skies. 

Before, helping her through her bad days had always been able to draw him at least a little out of his.  Now, it’s the promise of good ones that starts to pull him toward steadier ground.  While he’s been across the world dismantling she’s been coming together, growing into her own skin in ways that show all over.  She’s single now he knows already from Lucy; in that respect alone like she was when first crawled in through the bathroom window wet and bruised.  This time she comes in through the front door, dry and smiling, a dead flower tucked behind her ear. 

There’s a moment at first where all he can see behind his eyes are bodies too much like hers, a young girl with bloodied hands clawing at his throat, a dozen others floating against his knees, a dream he had the week he touched down of his finger on the trigger and a solider with her face.  The flickers push him to retreat, to draw back to his room and shut doors inside and out until they fade, but before he can reel too far back Prudence’s hand is on his chest, jarringly warm and real. 

“Hey.  I wanted to come sooner, but a visit wouldn’t be enough and I knew I was leaving at the end of this run of the show, so I thought I’d wait until I could—“ 

She’s so earnest; he can’t fucking take it.  “You didn’t have to—“  He winces internally at the sound of his voice, too jagged.  Shit, he sounds like he’s smoked two packs and it’s not even afternoon.  Maybe he has; he’s not counting.  He clears his throat.  “I mean, not for me.  I’m okay.” 

He can’t bear to look at her eyes, but he’s got ample imagination to picture what he might see.  Her touch is telling enough, slow and careful as she reaches up to brush his hair back and trace the edges of a wound so faded he’s amazed she found it at all.  She draws him in from that single point of contact, deliberate, moving in increments until she’s close enough to rise up on her toes and brush a kiss against his cheek. 

She is as careful with him as he was with her, her face cradled between his hands and Jude’s the first night they took her to bed.  The bruises on her skin were fading but they’d sought them out, traced with kisses every last smudge they longed to erase.  She’d suffered at that bastard’s hands; in theirs she was treasured. 

There’s part of him that wants to say again that she didn’t have to come take care of him, that he doesn’t need it, but even for a liar that’s farther than he can reach.  He could say it to his father, maybe, but this is his family and whatever he can or can’t bring himself to ask for outright, he’s a needy bastard these days.  Even when he’s shutting Lucy out, he needs to hear her breathing through the cracks in the door. 

When he crushes Prudence to him, she smells like wildflowers.  Her cheek rests against his, her arms around his neck gripping tight like they’re trying to match his hold, like the power of it doesn’t frighten her.  The taste of blood in his mouth fades, overridden by her name. 

<><><><><> 

He buys a notebook at the drugstore, shoves it under his bed for two weeks before he pulls it out and starts writing, one page at a time. 

_Hey, Jude_

_Shit, man, I’m sorry.  The hospital just took it out of me, you know?  I mean it’s crazy; I wrote you from that hellhole but I come back here and it all dries up. ~~As soon as I got home I should have~~_

_You know, I think that’s it.  It hasn’t felt like being home.  It’s too empty, or maybe I am.  Maybe both._

_Hey, Jude_

_Don’t worry, hospital wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  I’m all in one piece and they still let me stay.  Thought for damn sure I’d be going right back; I saw it happen.  It’s not a run of luck to beat the devil, but I’ll take it._

_Hey, Jude_

_I should’ve been here; I’d have never let them take you.  If anyone was going to get arrested there, should have been me.  Hell, when I pissed him off in high school dad  used to say if I didn’t shape up I’d see the inside of a cell.  You know I never thought it, but that’d be one time I wouldn’t have minded proving him right._

_I mean it, you know.  I’d have never let you go._

_Hey, Jude_

_Did you know if you look up Liverpool the Titanic’s front and center?_

_I mean I’m sure you did, but it made me laugh.  I hate to break it to you, man, but you just might have been destined to be part of a disaster of epic proportions.  I don’t make the rules, but I might have helped materialize them.  Sorry about that._

_Hey, Jude_

_I’m a goddamn mess._

_I want you so bad sometimes I can’t fucking breathe, but hell if you were here I’m not sure it’d matter.  I mean it would, to you and Lucy and Prudence and everybody, I just feel like I’m probably kidding myself if I think I’d let you see any of this shit if you were home.  Hell, you won’t see it now.  How many of these things have I written and not mailed?  Fuck knows, but I’m almost out of paper, and that should tell us both something._

_Everything burns.  You don’t know it until you see it, but it all burns, Jude.  Trees and tanks and skin and bone.  I can still feel it, the way it radiates; it’s like this thing breathing down the back of your neck.  You can hear what happens if you don’t get away, it’s in the snapping and the screaming and I can’t get it out, I can’t claw it out, I can’t shut it up.  I can’t burn it out, and isn’t that a goddamn irony._

_I heard Lucy talking to Jojo a few weeks ago.  They both think I’ll end up a junkie over this mess and you know, I’d be more offended if they didn’t have a point.  I can’t say the morphine in the hospital didn’t help, man.  I can’t.  I’d like to.  I hated the way I felt on it but I hate the way I feel off it, so I’m not sure how much difference it makes.  I can’t tell her this; I can’t tell you this either.  I can see the face you’d make, clear as I can see hers._

_Look, I’m not saying I’m using, okay?  I’m not.  Not yet._

_I threw the rest of these away, but this one’s going out via lighter.  Sorry._

_Hey, Jude_

_Come drink with me; I can’t sleep._

_I’ve got the booze, just bring yourself.  Come home, Judey.  To me or to her, I don’t give a rat’s ass._

_That’s not exactly true.  Just come home._

_Hey, Jude_

_I’m a sorry son of a bitch, and I’m out of paper.  Maybe next time, huh?_

_But hey, here’s something.  Me and Prudence knocked together a bookshelf for Lucy.  Other than putting a door up on the old room(sorry, man), I haven’t done anything quantitatively constructive since I came home.  Felt nice.  I hope she likes it._

_I'm trying._

_Love,_

_Max_

<><><><><> 

He hasn’t slept in over thirty-six hours.  He knows Lucy knows; shit, she has to.  There doesn’t have to be a mirror in his bathroom for him to know he looks like a goddamn ghost.  Still, all things considered, he feels like he doesn’t look half bad.  He doesn’t feel so bad either, honestly.  His mind ran so hot and loud last night that all the damaged pieces have run themselves ragged, their clatter dwindled down to dull radio static.  There’s something amusing in the thought that even the shit he can’t escape is tired, but he’s not sure anyone else would appreciate the joke, so he keeps that to himself.

The list of things he got done today might be pretty fucking short, but he shaved and he changed out of his robe into jeans and an undershirt and his army shirt that he’d swear still smells like smoke and blood but is somehow comforting all the same.  No one else ever notices, though, so he’s pretty sure that one’s all in his head.  He probably looks like a ragged scarecrow, but he’s trying his best to get in the habit of occasionally being halfway presentable.  He’ll have to if he’s going to start driving taxis again, and that’s just what he plans on trying next week. 

He hasn’t told Lucy that yet.  Mostly, he doesn’t want to get her hopes up in case he can’t bring himself to go through with it.  There’s a smaller part of him, though, that’s afraid she’d say he’s not ready in the nicest way she could, and he’s not sure what’s worse about that—the chance that she’s right or the fact that these are worries she has now.  Growing up, he was always the one looking out for her.  That much he _has_ told her, but it only made her tease him gently, her eyes smiling at his as she reminded him that she’s had him to worry about ever since he got old enough to make their parents start talking about him.  She’s not wrong, but he’s also not sure he ever gave it enough thought.  He’s been on her worry list a long, long time. 

Before, though, at least she took breaks.  Lately, he’s become a full time occupation.  Dinner’s over and Prudence is getting high alone in the next room with the radio to keep her company.  He’s washing dishes and he’s not sure he feels up to sharing a joint with her tonight, but Lucy should be.  At the very least, she should be in there with her, talking and laughing and singing.  Instead, she’s at the kitchen table with a book she isn’t reading.  He’s gotten good at feeling eyes on the back of his neck and even if he hadn’t, she hasn’t turned a page in ages. 

He’s turning over just how he wants to bring it up when the music changes, the upward twist in volume immediately understood as Sadie’s voice fills the apartment.  There’s so much of Sadie herself encapsulated in that sound that he can feel her spreading out around them, filling the empty spaces and settling warm around his shoulders.  For a second he’s still, hands pressed the edge of the sink while he soaks her in.  With a shake of his head, he swallows the words he’d gathered.  Hers are better. 

He pushes away from the sink with dripping hands, wipes both halfheartedly against the hem of his open shirt on the way to the table.  Lucy’s eyes are questioning, but he doesn’t wait for the follow through to reach her mouth.  He asks his own instead, one arm outstretched with a flourish to offer her his hand.  Water drips off the back of his knuckles onto the book she isn’t reading.

Her hand rises to rest in his like the move is automatic, but it’s more of a perch than a clasp.  Her hesitation hurts maybe half as much as the flicker of disbelief in her eyes, but he’s earned both and he can bear them.  His fingers close gently over hers as he clears his throat. 

“Well?  May I have this dance or not?”  The sudden flash of light in her eyes stabs far sharper than he’d expected it to, but he pushes through it.  “I mean, I can’t say I’m not rusty, but—“  He makes a point to let his eyes dart around the kitchen, his whisper conspiratorial.  “—we’re not exactly overflowing with other takers to fight me for your hand at the moment, so—“

He’s more than willing to let her laugh override him, loses himself in the melody of it as he pulls her to her feet.  There’s a second where it really all does feel foreign—he hasn’t danced in a goddamn age and the intimacy of it feels almost too stabilizing to be real.  When he shipped off he’d been so accustomed to touch he’d felt impossibly alone; now, it’s the easy way she leans into him that’s jarring, all the more so because he craves it. 

He draws her closer to fight the dizzying rush, breathes until he feels his equilibrium return.  She’s too real to deny, all the way from her hand in his to the weight of her head against his shoulder.  She’s solid, and Sadie is still singing, and before he can second, third, or fourth guess whether or not he can do this, they’re already dancing.  Slow and careful, yeah, but it’s not half bad.  It’s not bad at all. 

Honestly, it’s pretty fucking incredible. 

Max sighs, turns to brush a kiss against her hair.  With his eyes closed she could be eighteen again, sixteen, ten.  He may not remember the first time he held her but he remembers her at four, crying into his chest because she fell on the brick out front.  He’d held her so tight his arms hurt.  He couldn’t draw her pain out and onto himself by force of will, but no one could say he hadn’t tried. 

He hums against her temple, pauses at the squeeze of her fingers against his to shift instead to words he knows, of rain and wind and the draw of a road so old and familiar he’s carried the roots of it inside him since the day she was born.  He starts quiet, a little stilted, but he finds his voice in the way she looks at him, the effortless slide of her fingers through his as he guides her out and pulls her back to him again, the rise and fall of her notes as she fills in the spaces where he falters.  The result may not be entirely steady or as strong as Sadie, but between the two of them, it’s whole. 

When it’s over, he can’t bring himself to let her go.  She doesn’t really seem to want him to, either.  Her arms are around him, loose, fingers trailing through the hair at the back of his neck.  She’s gazing up at him with near painful intensity that he lets go until it starts to make his chest hurt, his lungs too tight. 

“You can blink, you know.” 

“Sorry.”  And yet she doesn’t, just whispers like there’s some cathedral quiet she’s breaking.  From Prudence’s room, Creedence has taken over the airwaves. 

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, Luce.”  He means for it to be warm and teasing, he really does, but even in a whisper that almost matches hers he’s afraid the words fall a little too heavy. 

She blinks, a noise that is and isn’t a laugh slipping from her throat.  “No, I know, I know, it’s just—“  One arm unhooks from around his shoulder, her fingertips tracing along his jaw to the edges of the smile he hadn’t much noticed until her thumb caught it.  “It’s really good to see you.” 

Hurt and all, it’s pretty damn good to be seen.  Rather than figure out how to say that, though, he just kisses her forehead and lets her look.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to include a line from the song outright, but I couldn't manage to do that and keep the paragraphs flowing the way I wanted. So, for reference, the song Max and Lucy dance to is The Long and Winding Road. Credit for that awesome selection goes to my best friend, who is listed up there as the person this fic is for, <3


	2. Chapter 2

After a solid week of back and forth, he makes up his mind that if he’s going to call Brookline, he’d best do it while Lucy’s out.  The decision’s made, but still he sits on the kitchen table and smokes while he works his way around to it, considering the phone hanging on the wall across the room like if he doesn’t keep his eyes on it might strike on its own, cord crawling up his arm like a vine to press the receiver to ear.  Prudence is passed out in her room, only back maybe an hour after a long night out with their new neighbor from downstairs.  He’s not picking up his cab tonight until after five.  If he’s gonna do this, there’s really no better time than right now. 

After two more cigarettes, he unfolds from the table and crosses the floor before he can change his mind. 

It’s middle of the day on a Thursday and he knows, he _knows_ she’s home, but still his breath catches a little when it rings twice, like maybe this conversation won’t be happening after all.  Before the third, though, the receiver clicks. 

“Hello?” 

Max’s wrist curls over the phone base that hangs on the wall, leans into it harder than he probably should.  “Hey, mom.” 

Jesus, fuck, why is it so hard to hear her gasp?  Christ, Lucy’s the one that’s been here, living this through with him every goddamn day and this woman hasn’t even come to see him, hasn’t done anything but mail letters he hasn’t read, but he can’t bear to hear her hurt.  They may not be the picture of a healthy family but she’s his mother and hell, if he’s honest, most of his problems have never been with _her_.  Not really. 

“Maxwell?” 

He laughs, short and dry.  His hand’s so tight on the receiver his knuckles ache.  “Yeah, that’s me.” 

“Sweetheart—“  She’s struggling, he can damn near see it.  “I’ve been calling, but Lucy thought—“

“No, it’s okay; she’s right.  I haven’t exactly been good company.  I mean, I’m still not, I just, ah—“  He shrugs, winces.  Shit, this was a terrible idea.  “I don’t know.  I just thought I’d call.”  Fuck, he’s shit at this, but what else can he say?  How do you small talk your way through a conversation with your mother you never thought you’d live to have?  The last time he saw her she was crying at the airport.  His dad had tried to shush her and she’d shrugged him off, something between panic and helpless fury in her eyes.  All his life she’d been so put together.  He never thought he’d see her like that. 

“How are you doing?  She said…she said your injuries—“

“Is Michelle okay?  I know I missed her birthday, but she’ll be getting something soon.  I just went back to work, tryin’ to help Lucy out with the bills.”  He gets why she has to ask about him, he does, but this isn’t a conversation they’re having over the phone.  He’s in one piece and she knows it; it won’t do either of them any good for him to try to explain that the shred of metal that clipped his head was kind of inconsequential in all respects other than its ability to get him shipped back home.  All the real damage was already done. 

It takes her a minute, but she takes a deep breath, drops her thread and picks up his.  “She’s alright, honey.  She was scared when she heard you were in the hospital and she misses your letters, but she knows you love her.  I…I told her you might be home for a few days, come summer?  Or maybe Christmas?”

“Yeah, maybe.  We’ll see, but don’t promise her anything, alright?  I’ll get a letter out to her though; you can tell her that.”  She’s good kid, and he does love her, he _really_ does, but it’s different with her.  She was born too late to bond with him like Lucy did.  Lucy, she’s his sister and his friend and his rock.  Michelle’s a baby, even if she is growing up.  The less she knows about him right now, the better. 

“She’ll look forward to it.”  She sighs, and there’s a rustle like she’s pulling the phone closer.  “It’s good to hear your voice.  I’ve been so worried, Max, I never wanted this to happen, I never thought—“

“Yeah, I mean these things happen to other people, right?”  Immediately, he regrets his sarcasm.  It’s not like _he_ expected this to happen, either.  He thought he’d drop out and move to New York and…well, that was it, really.  The plan had ended there.  In his defense, it had gone brilliantly for a few months. 

“I just meant—“

“Shit, I know.  ‘m sorry.”  He should probably apologize for his language, too, but he feels a little bit beyond it.  He’s only got so much energy for pretending; he’s not sure he can spare any to protect her sensibilities.  He swallows, rests his forehead against the phone base.  “I should have called sooner.  It’s good to hear you too, you know.” 

“Don’t worry about that.  You just take care of yourself, and you call me when you have the time.  Okay?”

Shit, fuck.  His eyes are burning, his throat, the tips of his fingers.  If he’d had the foresight to pull the flask out from under his bed and lay it on the counter, he could do with a hell of a drink.  “Yeah, okay.” 

“I love you, sweetheart.  I just want to know you’re safe.” 

Well, on that they can agree.  He’d like to know that, too. 

<><><><><> 

There’s something to be said for persistence. 

He’s not really sure how long Jojo’s been playing guitar outside his door, but he _does_ know he’s watched the sunlight crawl from the bed all the way up to the wall.  Given the state of burned out orange it’s at now, he’s been at this hours, minimum.  They told him back at the hospital that some days would be better than others, but at the time they all seemed so similar he hadn’t fully been able to grasp what that meant.  Now, he does.  Some days are manageable until bits of them aren’t; other days he wakes up with gunfire in his head and he can’t even remember what might have brought it on, if anything, can’t even begin to know how to get it out. 

Jojo might not know how either, but he’s been pouring his love out behind a locked door all afternoon, the notes that rise from his fingers so thick with his soul they’re almost loud enough to mask the cacophony of Max’s memories.  That’s…shit, he doesn’t have words for what that is. 

Max drags himself to the edge of the bed, rolls his shoulders and stretches against the ache in his back.  He’s been curled in the same position far too long, but there’s some comfort in having his back to the wall and he just couldn’t bring himself to move.  He finds his cigarettes by feel, pats back farther and farther in search of his lighter until he knocks a bottle of Jack instead.  The glass clunks against the bedframe and though the guitar keeps going, he hears a touch of hesitation between the chords. 

“Just give me a second.  I’ll get the door.” 

Jojo responds with a scale, low to high. 

To his left he finds his notebook, flask, and a pair of jeans.  The lighter seems a lost cause, so he grabs a sip from the flask instead before pushing to his feet, cigarette still dangling from his fingers.  He unlocks the double doors with a flick of his wrist, feels the shift and give of wood as Jojo pulls back from the one he’d been leaning on to get to his feet and come inside. 

Max should thank him first, he really should, but he really doesn’t feel like talking about it, and Jojo doesn’t look at all like he’d mind if they didn’t.  His smile is easy, his hand warm as he claps it briefly against Max’s shoulder. 

Max circles back to sit down again, taps his cigarette against his wrist.  “You got a light, man?  I can’t find a damn thing in here.” 

“Yeah, I got you.”  He settles his guitar against the wall, flips the lighter a couple times against his palm without holding it out before he reaches into his pocket to fish around in his own pack.  Rather than the cigarette Max expects, he tilts a joint out between his fingers, eyebrows raised in question.  “Been a long time since we shared one of these.”

It has, too damn long, but he’s not sure he’s up to it. 

Whatever Jojo reads on his face, it makes him shake his head.  “Hey, it’s up to you, but it might help, and it won’t hurt.  It’s just good weed, man; I promise.” 

Well, hell, why not.  He trusts Jojo, and he’s tired.  He’s done literally nothing all day but he’s felt so twitchy his muscles might as well have been crawling out of his skin.  Maybe if he smokes a little it’ll take the edge off.  He nods his acceptance, shifts over and scoots back against the wall to give Jojo room to settle in next to him. 

There really is a lot about this he’s missed—the camaraderie of it, the press of a warm shoulder against his, the taste of rich smoke that feels like it diffuse down all the way to his toes.  Even this silence is better than most others, devoid of both menace and pressure.  He doesn’t have to speak to give Jojo the thanks he’s wanted to for hours; it’s all there in the brush of their fingers as the joint changes hands, the way he lets his spine relax until his head’s resting heavy against Jojo’s shoulder.  He doesn’t have to say a goddamn thing, and Jojo hears him. 

He shifts, his arm maneuvering carefully around Max’s shoulder to let him rest closer with a gentle squeeze.  “Hey, it’s alright.  It’s gonna be alright.  We got you, Max.  All the way through.” 

“And what’s past this?  D’you know?”  It’s been a long, long time since he’s smoked.  He feels loose limbed, too honest.  Normally, he’s better at keeping a lid on just how trapped he feels.  Still, the roar in his head is dulled.  He can’t regret it.  Max cranes his neck, almost far enough back to catch a good look at Jojo’s face but not quite.  “You made it past Detroit yet?”

He’s quiet at first, but even _this_ quiet isn’t so bad.  He can feel Jojo thinking, the acceptance of comfort in the flex of his hand when Max leans just a little more into him to offer his support.  It’s strange, he doesn’t feel like he’s doing too well holding himself up these days, but he has to believe that if any of them need them he could take at least a little of the weight.  If he can’t, there’d be no point, no after worth reaching for. 

 “No.  I haven’t.”   By the time his answer comes, they’re finished smoking.  It’s not logical, but that seems to Max to make the words fall just a little heavier. 

He blinks, his gaze fuzzing in and out on the strip of dying sunlight thrown up near the ceiling.  “Then how do you know it ends?”

“I don’t.” 

Max’s laughter comes out just slow enough to muddy the undercurrent of panic.  “See, this is the speech they should give us when they turn us loose.  None of that…inspirational bullshit.  Just straight up, you’re fucked, here’s a shitty health plan and a bag of clothes.”

“Hey.”  Jojo shakes him gently, keeps Max tight against his side.  “Hey, listen to me, that’s not all there is.  Just because I don’t know…I don’t know; that’s all.  Doesn’t mean it doesn’t end, just means I’m not there yet either.  Besides, whether it does or not, you don’t stop.  You keep moving.  Anytime you can’t, you just hold on until you can.  Don’t give that shit any ground.” 

He’d like to believe he can do that.  He really would.   “I’m trying.”

“I know.  I see it.” 

Max twists, pulls away slowly to sit sideway and feel around between them until Jojo finds the lighter and a cigarette and pushes them into his hands.  He hums his thanks, takes a hit while he thinks.  “Just between you and me, I still think I’m fucked.” 

“Well, that just tells me I didn’t play loud enough.”  His smile is fucking infectious; Max can feel it catching at the corners of his own mouth. 

“Does it work?  I mean I know—“  It’s hard to articulate about the logistics of phantom gunfire and guitar notes, so he just gestures at himself instead.  “But for you, does it stop when you play?” 

“Sometimes it does.  Sometimes I’m up there on stage and it’s like—“  He skims his hand across the air, smooth like wind on water.  “—like there’s nothing outside that song that matters.  Everything I need, it all gets wrapped up in the sound; it all fits somewhere.”  His knee knocks to the side, nudging Max’s.  “See, that’s what we need to find for you, man.  You gotta fight back on your own terms.” 

It sounds appealing, but he’s got nothing to fight _with_.  He’s no musician; he’s no artist.  That’s all Jude.  Shit, just thinking his name makes his eyes close.  Max leans into it, rests his head against the hand holding the smoldering cigarette he’s not fully appreciating and catches his breath.  “Hey, have you heard from Jude?”

“Haven’t you?  I thought he was writing you all the time.” 

He was, religiously, but that was the jungle and this is New York.  The last time, the _only_ time he’d written Jude from the hospital it’d been to tell him he was stateside and alive, to wait and he’d tell him more when he could.  Without his consent, all that ‘more’ he’d planned on had spilled over into nearly two notebooks of unsent letters.  So much about his life seemed outside his consent these days. 

Max flicks ash in the general direction of the old beer bottle he keeps by his bed.  “How is he?”

“He’s been better.  Seems pretty messed up over how it all went down with Lucy there at the end, and I know he’s been worried sick about you.  Doesn’t help him being back at that damn shipyard alone.” 

No, it couldn’t.  At a loss, he kept his silence, waiting for more. 

“Have you tried talking to him about coming home?  I know he wants to; it’s like he’s waiting to be asked.” 

“So ask—“

“It’s not me he’s waiting on.” 

Max goes to the kitchen for two beers, and that’s the last they talk about Jude.  There’s another joint, a stretch of music, the comfortable settling of evening into night and night into early morning.  Lucy and Prudence fade in and out until Jojo fades out with them and it’s just Max left, sitting in the middle of the floor with an empty bottle of whiskey beside him and a good view under his bed. 

He catches the notebook by its wire coil, pulls it out to flop open somewhere in the middle.  Rather than bother to turn the page, he rips five out until he sees blank lines.  He finds a pen behind his shoes, and writes. 

_Hey, Jude_

_Jojo’s leaving tomorrow.  Today, shit,whatever.  He’s going after Sadie and I’m glad, hell he should, but I’ll miss him.  I already miss him._

_You hear stories about all these guys that go over there and make friends until they see their heads blown off and I mean that happens, but at the time I always tried to see beyond it.  Whoever or whatever I found and lost, you guys were safe.  You and Lucy and Prudence and Jojo and Sadie, the draft couldn’t touch any of you.  You have any idea how goddamn grateful I was for that?_

_I dreamed about it sometimes, what kind of hell it would have been if they’d sent you with me.  If I’d met you there, instead of Princeton.  I woke up seeing your face on bodies and I couldn’t stop shaking I couldn’t_

_Whatever else I’ve got, whatever I’ve had, I love you more.  That’s just how it is.  Maybe I knew it before I left, but I know it now.  I didn’t want to go but the truth is if one of us had to do this, it’s no question._

_I love you more._

He can’t finish, but he isn’t surprised.  Most of these things go unfinished as well as unsent.  He’s hot all over, the relief from tension he got from the joints diminishing in favor of exhaustion so shaky he feels strangely wired.  He’s heavy getting to his feet but he feels better at the window, pushes it open wide for the refreshing chill of spring air.  There’s not much breeze in the city that isn’t hot, but if you catch it right, sometimes it’s still enough to feel the cold. 

The unfinished letter swirls around in his mouth, blends here and there with remembered snatches of melody.  They seem to fit but he can’t hold it long and Jojo’s the writer anyway.  He rubs his eyes and lets them go, head bowed as leans into the cold and tries to think of anything but the damp biting wind off the English coast, of docks and ships and grey iron and the boy with too much color in his heart who doesn’t belong there, who never has. 

<><><><><> 

There’s an innocence to the way Prudence kisses that never fades.  It’s inherent to the girl herself, unchanged by time and life alike.  Behind the light airiness that Max remembers, though, there’s fresh determination.  There is no experimentation to this, no feeling out her own boundaries.  She’s never defined herself to him outright so he’s put no labels on her, but he’s come far past the days when he thought she might have fallen for him and never let on.  Whatever attraction she felt for him and Jude, it’s dim next to the draw that pulled her to Sadie.  Or, more recently, the alluring tug of Joan, the new downstairs neighbor Max finally met last week at breakfast. 

She’s a student, a damn smart girl, into science and math and apparently Prudence.  It doesn’t seem to be anything concrete yet, but from what Max has seen, he approves.  Prudence is happy and it’s been awhile since Rita and it’s a _far_ better option than her pining after Sadie.  All of those are good things, but they’re also all reasons why her kissing him now doesn’t make any kind of sense he can string together. 

He’s confused as shit, but he can’t say there’s nothing nice about the familiarity, the intimacy.  She’s warm against his side and her hands are careful, slow, ever conscious that what she holds is more a fluttering, flighty thing than a solid man.  She tastes like summer.  When she pauses to look up at him, the question in her eyes has more layers than he can read.  He blinks, licks his lips and gets distracted by the taste, by the trail of her fingers through his hair.   

“Max, hey—“  Her hand is on the collar of his shirt, thumb tapping against his skin to draw him back to the sound of her voice, to be sure he’s listening.  “Is this okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, I just—“ A dozen follow-ups struggle in his throat, choking each other out. 

It’s fine, of course it’s fine, but he hasn’t kissed anyone since he left New York and it’s wonderful and a little jarring because he might not be the most classic romantic but he thought for the longest time that he’d die with Jude’s mouth the last he ever tasted.  Sex in the jungle was a rarity, an odd mix of dreamlike physicality, reduced to images his mind seems eager to keep from him—the voice of a woman whose name he never knew, the rough hands of a farm boy from Indiana.  Each one marked an escape attempt for his mind, an overflow of desperation.  He took nothing of value from them, gave nothing of himself to them.  Maybe that’s why it’s hard to remember—even nameless as they are in his memory he knows more of the girls he met upstate on the bus than these ghosts. 

He kissed neither of them, though the boy tried.  Max was miles away, his head turned away against a shoulder that smelled of napalm smoke.  The night he’d had with Jude had flashed in his mind then, the width of his palm, the sound of his breath, the scrape of stubble against the soft skin of Max’s throat.  He offered himself up into Jude’s hands, so eager to be taken he hadn’t give one goddamn what might happen when Jude let go.  The strangest part, the absolute worst and best part, was that Jude never had.  At least if he had, Max had never felt it.  The next morning he’d tried to tell himself otherwise, to believe so wholeheartedly that what they’d done had changed nothing that it might become true. 

Jude’s grip was far more lasting than that.  He felt it when he least expected it, an echo at the back of his neck of the curl of Jude’s hand when he huddled in the mud, Jude’s fingers wrapped like wisps of fog around his wrist as he took his finger off the trigger, trembling at the silence.  He’d tried to explain it to Jude once, but all that had come out in the letter was a too simplified _sometimes, it’s almost like you’re here_. 

The response he’d gotten was Jude’s shortest, not really a letter at all but a drawing with a caption.  There were hands bound tight in barbed vine, dripping blood of black ink, a scraggled feather ripped in places but unbroken between the cage of tattered fingers.  Beneath it the words scrawled were markedly uneven, thick and loose like the ink had flowed out of a vein instead of a pen. 

_Wherever you are_

Max folded it up and carried it tucked between his shirts, pulled it out every night to worry the paper between the pads of his fingers long after the image ran down to nothing under the assault of rain and sweat and blood. 

So often over there, he had split himself into bits and pieces—before he slept he was Jude’s, when he had a minute in the sunlight he was Lucy’s brother, when he returned fire he was no one.  He’s not sure who he was up against that tree with Indiana Boy (Billy, his name was Billy), but he does know he’ll never let himself be that broken down into components again.  As a whole he might be in godawful shape, but whatever else he is, somewhere in the jumble the person he knows comes together and falls apart with increasing regularity.  Like a weather forecast, overcast and hazy, 30% chance of Maxwell Carrigan. 

Now that he’s got some measure of cohesion back he won’t sacrifice it, not to work more days or function better in public.  Not even to take the comfort Prudence offers.  He knows it for what it is, now; he might not have caught on at first but he can feel it in the sincerity of the hand pressed over his heart, the sweetness of the kiss that lands at the corner of his mouth.  She has seen his loneliness, and rather than let it stand she would patch it by taking him into her bed.  Outside this place the prospect might make less sense, but he sees the purity of it, love and comfort and friendship distilled into something like shelter, something not so different from what he and Jude had been for her, when she moved in.  If he was in a better place he might be able to take it, but there is too much of him that can’t be held up to the light, too much inside he can’t bear for her to see. 

The answers jostling in his throat settle, trickling down into a semblance of order.  He turns his head to catch her mouth again, kisses her with the heat of gratitude he has to believe she can feel.  His hand squeezes lightly at the side of her neck, eyes closing as he breathes against her cheek. 

“It’s fine, it’s still fine, but I don’t think—“  He swallows, turns his head to kiss the side of her mouth, like she had his.  “Can we just—“

“Anything.  Just let me help you?”  Jesus, the faint quiver in her question hurts.  Sure, she’s a little out of breath and maybe he’s hearing too much, maybe his own fears are embellishing more than they should but it’s like she expected to be turned away completely, like she made this attempt thinking he’d walk away and shut her out and…

Maybe that’s his fear, and maybe it’s not entirely unfounded either.  He can’t know the truth, but he _can_ kiss her, so he does.  It’s even easier, now that he knows what it is and what it isn’t, so easy in fact that he does get a little lost in the rhythm of it, the wet heat of her mouth and the way her hands smooth at his chest and his back, rubbing against tension that finally gives.  He sinks back with her, lowers her to blankets that catch her and keeps going until his head is spinning and he has to stop and catch his breath. 

His hand is on her hip, a static point of contact that keeps him from drifting.  Her lips are swollen, soft and damp when she tilts her head up to kiss his forehead.  He feels a little woozy, a little raw, but the vise tight squeeze of his ribs around his lungs has rarely felt so uncoiled since he came home.  

Max sighs, melts into the bed beside her with his arm still draped across her waist.  Her fingers dance across the ridge of bone on the back of his hand like piano keys, and he smiles.  “You’re an angel, Prudence.”  His voice is warm, heavy.  Shit, he could almost sleep here. 

Her breath stirs his hair, her right hand a brace between his shoulders as she leans in to nuzzle against him.  “No, I’m your friend.” 

Same thing, really.  To be his friend these days, it’s gotta take the patience of a saint.

They stay like that, huddled closed and breathing easy until Prudence falls asleep.  Max feels so heavy he’s not even sure he can get up at first, but he reminds himself that he has to, and it helps his arms move.  She shifts toward the warm space he leaves behind, and he stops to settle her hair out of her face, pulls her quilt up around her shoulders because he knows she hates to be cold.  He feels like a bastard walking out, but the knowledge that he could hurt her if he stayed is louder still. 

The bruises on Lucy’s wrists had mottled her skin for days.   

His bed is cold, the sheets and the pillows and the wall he presses his back against.  He lights a cigarette and draws the blankets closer, curls himself in tighter.  Around the smoke he still tastes Prudence, like honey and lavender.  After so long without anyone else’s mouth on his, it’s still a little strange.  He’d been so sure he’d given the whole practice up, ready to carry forever undimmed the memory of a last kiss that mattered. 

It was right here, this room.  Five days to go and Jude had cornered him, caught his shoulder and made him turn when it looked as if there was a chance Max might walk away. 

“Are we ever talkin’ about this, then?” 

His heart pounded about a thousand times a minute, and still he’d scrabbled around inside to reach the best smile he could muster.  When Jude’s hands pressed his chest hard enough to make him step back he was already halfway through holding his hands out, mouth open. 

“No, you’ve been dodgin’ bein’ alone with me for days; don’t tell me you haven’t.”

It was a fair enough request, really, and Jude’s eyes were at a level of dark and deep that damn near reached hypnosis.  Max felt stripped bare by them, held fast.  He blinked, tried to shrug and only made it halfway.  “Jude, c’mon, man, I was wasted; I’m shipping out in fucking days.  I’m a mess; I’m all over the place.  You know, it’s just—last wishes, all that shit.  It doesn’t have to—“

“ _Last_ wishes?”

“You know what I mean; I’m just saying—“

“You’re saying you thought we should fuck before you go over there to die and it doesn’t have to mean anything?  That’s what you’re sayin’, isn’t it?” 

Max flinched, Jesus, he couldn’t help it.  When he said it like that it was so much worse, full of righteous anger and the thick coat of Liverpool that always descends further over him the more heated he gets in any direction.  There was a deeper pain, too, that muttered that it wasn’t just the sex he wanted, that what they did hadn’t just been fucking.  At least, he hadn’t thought so, but he was also the one who _was_ about to suggest they write it off so he wasn’t really sure he could say that then. 

“Well I don’t believe you.  Hey.”  Even being a little rough with him, there was something painfully tender about Jude’s hands as he grabbed his face.  Even the light shake to make him look was careful, constrained. When his eyes met Jude’s, they were too bright.  “This means something.  This _is_ something, right here, and it’s more than you wantin’ one before you go.” 

All true, and all dangerous.  Max’s pulse was a painful beat against Jude’s palm, so hard and fast his head hurt.  “Lucy—“

“Knows; you know she does.“

“About the other night, sure, but you’re—“

“Lucy knows what I want, Max; do you?”  Max’s breath caught, trapped in his chest, pressed against his ribs like a wild thing caged.  Jude came closer, his thumbs swiping warm and easy along the line of his cheekbones.  “Cause I do.  And I thought I might have it, but you’ve been backin’ away from me and I—“

“I’m not, I—“  It was so easy, so fucking easy to tip his hand.  He couldn’t really regret it either, not with the way Jude sighed, eyes fluttering closed in relief so great he had to lean in to Max against the weight.  “No, Jude, listen, you’re not wrong, okay?  Fundamentally you’re not, but I can’t do this right now, I can’t—“  Jude let him go, the shock so great and unwanted at first that it took a second for Max to catch him, to reel him back.  “No, come here, listen to me; I’m just being honest with you.  You want to talk about this, you have to listen, too.” 

Jude’s murmured apology was almost lost behind his breath. 

“The thing is, whether I want to do this or not, it’s big.  I have to talk to Lucy, _you_ have to talk to Lucy, we have to…figure this shit out, and I can’t do that right now.  I can’t.  I’ve got less than a fucking week before the government owns my ass and I don’t want to leave with all this…this weight we haven’t even tested hanging over us.  I can’t leave it like that.  I’m sorry, maybe that’s a shit answer and I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, but I can’t do it.  I just can’t.” 

Jude was too still, too quiet.  With his head bowed, the shadows hid too much of his eyes for Max to see anything at all.  The wait was interminable, like ants crawling beneath his skin. 

“Fuck, come on, get pissed, tell me you understand; say something.”

Jude’s nod was slow, measured, an absolute non-answer.  That part didn’t come until he looked up.  “Whether I understand or I don’t, it’s your choice.  But I can ask you to promise me something.” 

Anything, _anything_.  Shit, if Jude had asked him right then to reconsider, staring him down with such fucking horrific resignation, he just might have done it.  Max nodded, held Jude’s eyes with his. 

“We talk about this when you come home, and we work it out.”  The need in his voice was so stark, so raw it made Max ache.  Shit, that’d be no hard promise to make.  It was everything he wanted, everything he’d never have. 

Max licked dry lips, his breath heavy.  “Yeah.  Shit, yeah.” 

There was no relief in the triumph of Jude’s smile, but there _was_ something to be said for the way Jude’s arms surrounded him, coaxing him in until his arms had wrapped around Jude, too.  The memory of it all is so fucking clear, kept shiny by recollection but never worn thing.  Jude had moved to kiss him and he had tried to turn away, almost managed until he felt Jude’s breath against his cheek, heard the soft, wounded lilt of his voice. 

“ ‘m I not allowed to kiss you at least?  Just the once, before you go.”

“Hey, I’m not going yet.  I’ve got days left, dammit.”

“You’ll stop me then.”

“I’m stopping you now.”

“Would you stop thinking about it and let me kiss you?” 

He’d had goodbye kisses, once from a girlfriend in high school, more than once at Princeton.  There was no goodbye in the careful way Jude’s mouth slanted against his.  If anything, it felt more like a beginning.  If he hadn’t been so goddamn bone terrified, he might have been more comforted.  It warmed him anyway, even if it couldn’t reach as deep as it should have.  There were a thousand things he wanted to say, every one of them something he couldn’t.  He didn’t know, honestly, whether turning Jude down now was selfishness or altruism.  He wanted to believe it was Jude he was protecting but shit, how could he be sure?  How much more would it hurt, after all, to go off knowing just how much more he had to lose? 

He didn’t want to go; Jesus, _fuck_ he didn’t want to go, or kill anyone, or die in a goddamn ditch with his skin on fire.  They said napalm burned at over a thousand degrees, that it stuck to skin like glue.  Max’s chest heaved, his breath wet as he hid his face against Jude’s neck.  Of the thousand, thousand things he couldn’t say, the only one he managed was Jude’s name.  There was more terror, more of the shadow of everything unspoken in the way it came out than he’d exactly intended, but Jude only drew him in closer, and he asked no questions. 

There was nothing but the security of his arms, the buzzing warmth of vibration as he hummed with his lips pressed to Max’s hair.  If Max closed his eyes, it was almost a louder sound than the ticking at the base of his neck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this were still a musical and not a fic, when Max is at the window after Jojo leaves he'd be singing a solo of In My Life. (And I would be watching, curling up into a ball of pain, lol)
> 
> Jude's humming there at the end is a song, too, but I don't yet know what it is. When the awesome person this fic is dedicated to figures out what the answer is, I'll post it here ;)
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading and kudos and commenting and just in general enjoying this thing; I really do appreciate it, <3


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